Its hard to say without trying a bunch of different things. Every bike is different. I love some of the 29ers I've ridden, but others I could never get to feel right. The lack of saddle to bar drop on some 29er's felt a bit weird to me. I think the -17 degree stem may help. A lot of the pro's resort to stuff like this to get the position right on the big wheels.

My Niner Sir9 with 90mm 0 degree stem and Reba 80mm fork (46mm offset) feels like a tank. Slow steering and very sluggish. Not a big fan of this bike at the moment, and will be swapping the suspension fork out for a shorter rigid fork shortly.

The same fork on my Misfit Dissent 29er with the same stem and bars (albiet slightly different geometry) felt much snappier.

My Ragley TD:1 29er has a longer TT and a 70mm stem with more saddle to bar drop, and a short rigid fork (what is really a suspension corrected 26" fork with a 29er wheel in it), and this is without a doubt the fastest, best handling 29er I've ridden, and thats with 37mm offset.

Not exactly weight weenie, but a Thomson X2 road stem would give you the -17 degree option, and readily available in Canada. At least its easy to find and resale value is great to see if it gives you the feel you are looking for.

1. Try a Cane Creek angleset which allows you to "change" the headtube angle.

2. The other option is to find a fork from a Gary Fisher bike with the "genesis" geometry. These have a unique-to-fisher rake/trail combination designed to work with the longer front end and shorter stem on the Fisher bikes.

I was going to mention the G2 fork as well. I recently put an 80mm G2 Reba on my 29er and the handling is much quicker than the previous 100mm standard rake fork. It takes some getting used to though. I almost went OTB a few times on the first few rides.

I am considering a very similar mod for my monstercross build, I have already reduced the fork from a 100mm to a 80mm and feel I still could use just a little quicker steering.Therefore I second the Cane Creek adjustable headset mod. It would take a 71 degree headtube to 72.5 degrees. Adding 1.5 degrees to the front end geometry would quicken things up for sureOne thing I can comment on that I have tried was going to a narrower bar it definately quickened up the steering. I,m interested to see how the stem option works out for youLet us know how things work out.

Who is online

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum